


He runs away while most of the country is still asleep

by 62miles



Series: Anosmia [3]
Category: SHINee
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-24
Updated: 2015-08-24
Packaged: 2018-04-16 22:20:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4642206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/62miles/pseuds/62miles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Originally chapters 7, now it is the third piece in the series. (I'm posting some old work to AO3 because I'm trying to feel love for my own writing again, such that I can <i>write</i> again.)</p><p>All books mentioned are real.</p>
    </blockquote>





	He runs away while most of the country is still asleep

**Author's Note:**

> Originally chapters 7, now it is the third piece in the series. (I'm posting some old work to AO3 because I'm trying to feel love for my own writing again, such that I can _write_ again.)
> 
> All books mentioned are real.

 

  
  
  
  
 _Hello; goodbye_  
  
  
  
  
  
Jinki leaves on a gray winter day, a day much like any other during this time of the year. He runs away while most of the country is still asleep, just a bit after the first subways start running.  
  
  
  
  
Or no, not gray.  
  
  
Not yet.  
  
  
  
  
It's a pitch black morning; the sun doesn't rise for another two and a half hours.  
  
  
It's the sort of emptiness that swallows your hand before you even realize that you've been holding on to something. But it's also the sort of silence against which Minho can hear his own heartbeat, a little louder and a little surer in his left ear.  
  
  
And that's better proof than the faint specters trailing from the corners of his mouth.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
It's cold.  
  
  
It is fucking cold.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Minho crushes the unopened pack of cigarettes against his palm.  
  
  
In his mind's eye, Changmin's sardonic smile flashes by.  
  
  
It's a strange sort of reflex but he hammers that same fist into the spot between his eyes; the pain radiates across his temples. _There's no way you're quitting! Just watch. You'll never go through with it!_  
  
  
And Changmin's right. Kind of right. Right, but in the wrong way.  
  
  
Kibum calls Minho during the last few minutes of yesterday, just before the clock strikes twelve.  
  
  
And then it does.  
  
  
And the magic evaporates.  
  
  
(Though there is no crystal slipper. They are Cinderella's footmen, at best.)  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
The ground under Minho's feet only becomes a little more solid once he caves in and buys the cigarettes. They weigh the way an anchor does, and with them stowed away inside his breast pocket, he feels a little better, a little braver.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
A few cars pass by.  
  
  
Their vivid red taillights, like unblinking eyes, stare into the darkness.  
  
  
The lane markings dividing their paths glow blue against the age-bleached asphalt.  
  
  
He has the urge to hurl the pack at them.  
  
  
He has the urge to, but he doesn't.  
  
  
He can't.  
  
  
The blustery cold has frozen together all the joints of his hand. And the deep-seated hunger—the hunger, more than anything—makes it hard to let go.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Kibum is carrying a cardboard box in his hands. _This side up_ , the arrow points toward his toes. The weight of what he's holding stretches his arms, his knuckles, his fingers, till everything about him is taut.  
  
  
Even the skin over his bone-white cheeks.  
  
  
He shifts, every so often. And the sleeves of his down jacket disguise those tremors of exertion.  
  
  
  
  
Eventually he sinks down and balances the box across his thighs.  
  
  
  
  
Kibum folds the flaps out of the way and reaches in. He softly caresses the contents as if they were a person's face.  
  
  
He's not particularly angry. He's not particularly sad.  
  
  
He just does it with a child-like look of confusion, as if it's something he is trying really, really hard to understand, but can't.  
  
  
  
  
Minho wrenches his fingers away from his palm.  
  
  
(The misshapen pack of cigarettes tumbles onto the sidewalk.)  
  
  
It has only been twenty minutes.  
  
  
Maybe thirty? Thirty-five?  
  
  
But it's already getting a little hard to remember the warmth.  
  
  
He rubs his hands hard against his face and there's nothing there except the faint pricks of his stubble. An absurd sort of laugh nearly makes it past the guard of his lips.  
  
  
With a crack of protest, Minho's knees give way. His right foot ends up knocking the flower pot closer to Kibum's left, but the other man doesn't notice. He just retreats a little further into his woolen scarf and takes a book out of the box. And he smooths down the slightly detaching corner of the cover.  
  
  
Minho can't make out much of it at first. (Except that it's dark. And blue, probably.)  
  
  
Then the white lettering begins to register:  
  
  
Gulm, ju, rim.  
  
  
  
  
 _Hunger_ , it says.  
  
  
  
  
Kibum draws his fingertip along the smaller characters below the title.  
  
  
He moves his lips in silence:  
  
  
Keu-nu-teu ham-sun.  
  
  
It's an awkward rendering of a Norwegian name.  
  
  
Kibum buries his nose into the book and inhales.  
  
  
He smiles. _Hyung was trying to find Growth of the Soil, but got this instead. Secondhand. I remember._  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
 _I remember..._  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
And into this pitch black morning, Kibum begins telling a story.  
  
  
Fragments of a story.  
  
  
Stories.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
There is a story for each book.  
  
  
  
  
 _Catch-22_ , which he reads while curled up in a bus seat. Kibum is slumped down next to him, claiming to be holding onto his English-Korean dictionary for him but really just wanting something to tap against the pole to the beat of Tik Tok. He just had his hair cut for 4500 won and Kibum nags him about how it's cropped too close to his skull. _Then I can go longer without having to cut it again_... His defense comes as a disinterested mumble. Kibum only gets a proper reaction out of him by introducing Judas to his left ear.  
  
  
  
 _Deep Blue Night_ , which a stranger backpacking across the country gives to his mother in thanks when she returns his lost wallet but refuses a reward. Its corners are already rounded and soft by then, its spine full of creases. He puts down his half-eaten patbingsu to grab the book, palms moist with sweat and condensation; Kibum puts down an empty bowl and claims his unfinished portion, bare feet kicking at the legs of his stool.  
  
  
  
 _The Dwarf_ , which leads to a pot of burned porridge and a stovetop mess. Kibum's roommate is away at a cousin's wedding, so he comes over as the replacement caretaker for Kibum, who isn't in a state to tell up from down, much less throw up anywhere near the toilet. And much, much less remind him to turn off the stove.  
  
  
  
 _I'm An Early Bird_ , which he ruminates over quietly for the sixth time while seated on one end of a rusty old seesaw. A few feet away, Kibum is engaged in a fierce battle with some snot-nosed six-year-old to see who can go higher on the swings. Kibum loses, but that is only because he is heavier (and afraid of heights).  
  
  
  
 _A Voiceless Window_ , which acquires the giant brown stain on page 19 (and the pages that follow) when Kibum, in the process of convincing him to give coffee a try, spills his Americano. Needless to say, everything's back to square one after the accident...  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Kibum rarely takes a breath; each sentences bleeds into the next.  
  
  
He knows the person who read the books like the back of his hand, but he doesn't quite know the books.  
  
  
He tries to recall what they're about.  
  
  
And sometimes he gets pieces of it right.  
  
  
Sometimes he mixes up the characters, rewrites the plot of one into the plot of another.  
  
  
  
  
Sometimes, he just makes things up.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
But it all stops when he sees the crude flip book cartoon doodled, by pencil, in the margins of _The Metamorphosis_. It's a one-eared stick figure knight. He's riding what should have been a horse but looks like a bloated dachshund, picking a fight with Godzilla's fire-breathing mini-me.  
  
  
Minho takes the book and thumbs over the pages slowly.  
  
  
A piece of flattened candy wrapper suddenly flies out from between the pages.  
  
  
Kibum moves to snatch it back, but he doesn't manage more than a grunt. (The box on his lap keeps him pinned down.)  
  
  
The wrapper flashes silver like the belly of a fish.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Once, twice—and then it's gone.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
It must have been important. Because Kibum stares after it, eyes wide and abnormally bright, bottom lip caught between his teeth, nails dug deep into the cardboard.  
  
  
Something violent is quickly bubbling up inside of him, pushing at his seams, threatening to explode, and—  
  
  
The taxi he called finally shows up.  
  
  
The driver opens the door and a smudge of yellow lights up the morning.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Kibum's shoulders dip; everything settles back down.  
  
  
Minho drops Kafka back into the box and lifts the whole thing from the other man's knees, leaving him with a heaving chest and the flower pot.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
(There is a story for each book.)  
  
  
  
  
(There is a story, too, for that piece of candy wrapper.)  
  
  
(But that's something Kibum refuses to tell Minho.)  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
